


The Musician of Azkaban

by Kill_titi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19213312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kill_titi/pseuds/Kill_titi
Summary: If he had known what was going to happen, Scorpius would never have gone to Azkaban. Because that day, he had heard the music ...





	The Musician of Azkaban

**Author's Note:**

> It is a translation

He did not want that. Nothing had been premeditated, and if there was treason, it was that of his own heart.

He had always been close to other kids, descendants of Death Eaters. They all told him that he was hard and cold enough to bear all that. So he had to come. For them it was too much but him, he was made from ice.

It started like this.

He did not have a family member imprisoned, but he accompanied the others to Azkaban, out of solidarity, each time. That's right, he had nothing to do there. He could have avoided these walls. But he could not say no to thoses children who looked like him but were not like him. He was strong enough to endure that, he was tough enough to accept the past.

But at Azkaban, he was bored while waiting in the dark hallway where the cells lined up one after the other, so numerous that he was unable to say how many they were on each floor of the prison.  
  
He was not afraid, he did not feel sad or empathic, he did not share their pain. He was coming and waiting, recovering friends always trembling and inconsolable. But he did not feel anything. That's why he was the perfect companion to enter this terrible prison.

He should not have been there.

He was waiting for Ethan that day, Ethan Rowle. He was visiting his grandfather and Scorpius had followed him as usual but this time he should not have. He was lying on the floor of the prison, his back leaning against the cold stone. He listened absently to Rowle's conversation, more out of boredom than out of real interest.

But that day was different, because that day he had heard the music.

Distant and supplicant, sliding on the cold rock, it pierced the darkness. The pure sadness in the notes that rose. An echo of his own loneliness.  
  
He had gotten up and followed the music. He passed the cells, one after the other, ignoring the occupants, who ignore him or call him, by invectives or groans. Assassins and worse still lived on these walls, but Scorpius followed the music in the stone corridor.  
  
Finally, he saw the musician. A black-haired man in his cell, sitting on the ground, one leg bent, his eyes closed as he played the violin. He paused when he heard Scorpius' footsteps and looked at him, frozen blue eyes almost as pale as his own.

"Are you lost, little angel?"

 

The voice was tinged with a Slavic accent, Russian or Ukrainian, which weighed in his words, making them deeper. Scorpius flinched at the sound of his voice, as he would do so many times after this meeting.  
  
" No.- Oh yes, you are lost.” He put the violin down and pointed to the boy with his bow. "You have nothing to do here."  
  
\- I'm comfortable among the murderers.  
  
Scorpius's voice was equal and cold. Everything about him was cold.- Ah, are you one of us then? He put the bow on the floor but he did not get up. "Come in the light, so I can see your face."  
  
Scorpius moved forward in the faint glow that the moon was producing through the barrels without windows. The man smiled.  
  
\- A Malfoy. But your features are softened. Your mother?  
  
\- Astoria Greengrass.  
  
He nodded, and seemed satisfied, as if he were presented with a quality wine. The Death Eaters all had the same reaction when they learned the ascendancy of a pureblood.  
  
"What's your name, little angel?  
  
\- Why would I tell you?  
  
He smiles.- To meet. You do not want to give me your name?  
  
Scorpius shook his head.- Do you want to know mine?  
  
\- No.  
  
He kept a distance of one meter between the bars of the cell and his body "I just came to listen to the music."  
  
The Man took back his instrument.- Then I'll play for you Little Angel.  
  
And the notes flew off and rolled over the stones. Scorpius sat down on the icy floor, never losing sight of the violinist who was lost in his music.  
  
Minutes passed, or hours. Ethan Rowle appeared in the corner of his eye, and he stood up before he spoke. The music stopped.  
  
\- I have to leave, Scorpius said.  
  
And so, he turned his back on the Man. His voice reached him.  
  
\- Will you come back to see me again?  
  
\- No.  
  
And he left the man behind him.  
  
But he came back. He had come back, so many times, to listen to the music.  
  
Yet man did not always play, he spoke. He told wonderful stories. He was a storyteller and Scorpius liked to listen to him talking. He liked to listen stories of sea crossings and mermaids, centuries-old battles, fallen kingdoms and heroes. The Man showed the little astrolabe he wore as a pendant and recounted the journeys of the ships that were looking at the stars.  
  
Many times Scorpius was tempted to write these stories down, take them home and keep them forever. But he gave up, preferring to come back for the Man to tell him again in this singing and deep voice. Scorpius never gave him his name and the man continued to call him Little Angel. Sometimes he coughed, and turned away to press a handkerchief against his lips. Then he continued his story.  
  
"You smell the flowers," he said to him one day. I'm tired of the smell of stones and the sea. Each time you come back with a different scent. " How old was he when he met the man? 10 years?  
He did not know anymore, but he remembered that he had started writing to him as soon as he entered Hogwarts.  
  
"You will give my letters to the man who plays the violin," he had said to the guard who saw him so often come.  
  
Things had been like this for years. He was 14 years old now. A Slytherin, who was the pride of his family. He had a friend. A dear friend, with beautiful green eyes and dark hair.  
  
A friend who loved him and who looked at him in the same way as he looked at the Man.  
  
Albus Severus Potter was everything he was not. Adventurous and combative with a heart of fire. Scorpius was cold, distant and secret, a being of ice. Albus was life, he took space and time and his boiling aura was dazzling while Scorpius preferred darkness and the diffused white light of moonlight nights.  
  
Albus had the most charming smile in the world and full lips. Ambitious, he was, but he should have lived among the Hogwarts lions. He always said that the magic hat had let him choose his house, and that he had **not** chosen Slytherin.  
  
It was a real conundrum because he was actually in Slytherin despite the fact that **it was not his choice** but he said he was exactly where he wanted to be. That was a mystery and he liked it to be.  
  
He was the only one to whom Scorpius spoke of the Man. It was a secret he shared with him, only with him. Scorpius would not have spoken of the Man to anyone else. Albus was also questioning him about the letters he was receiving, all sent from this stranger in Azkaban Prison.  
  
"You don’t want to know who he is? He had asked, so many times.  
  
Scorpius did not want to know. He was the Man and that was enough.  
  
Every year, on the anniversary of their meeting in Azkaban, he received a nocturne in a letter and the music began to play as soon as the envelope was opened. Always a different melody, a superb but incredibly sad music, the notes of absence and loss. The echo of his own heart.  
  
A little before Christmas that year, Albus had kissed him on the rooftop. Scorpius was lost in his kiss. He was touched by the intensity with which Potter caressed him. He wanted it, it was sure, and Scorpius loved his hands on him and his lips on his skin. He loved Albus' eyes, the warmth of this deep green. But he preferred the clear, cold eyes. He preferred ice.  
  
He was looking forward to the holidays. The wait and the absence tortured him. Despite the letters that came regularly, the Man never claimed him and never seemed surprised to see him. Scorpius came to see him every holiday, his cheeks reddened by the wind of the sea and his impatience, almost running in the corridors to the familiar cell. The man smiled tenderly at him but never felt impatient.Scorpius was troubled, almost jealous.  
One day, he exploded:"Do you even care if I come to see you or not?  
  
The man seemed surprised.- Why do you say that?  
  
\- You don’t feel anything!  
  
He was not ice anymore, he had always been, and now he was burning, and the Man, before him, felt nothing.  
  
For the first time, he wanted to escape from this place.  
  
The man had caught him through the bars, and had drawn him to him. It was the first time he touched him, that he felt his skin on his and his delicate and yet powerful hands. He wrapped his arms around his hips and rested his forehead against his head. His breath slid down his face and his throat.  
  
\- More than enough, I feel more than enough.  
  
Scorpius wanted to cry and felt this desire to surrender himself in the arms of the Man, to give himself to the heat that made him tremble and feel weak. But he had pushed him away. He had fled. But he had already lost, he knew it.  
  
And he returned the following days, to get intoxicated with the music and the voice of the Man.  
  
The months passed without consistency, through a veil, like a test to endure before each return home, before each visit of the prison.  
  
One spring morning, he let Albus drag into the Room of Requirement.  
He closed his eyes and let Potter undress him. He was on his stomach, Albus was crushing and penetrating him, clutching his wrists in his fingers.  
  
"I do not care if you think of another man. He is far away, he can’t have you!”  
He bit his shoulder and Scorpius spilled onto the floor, screaming in his climax. But he had no name to scream.  
  
The beginning of the summer, which preceded his entry into the fifth year, was the moment the spell was broken.  
  
"You must not come anymore."  
  
An icy veil imprisoned Scorpius' heart, as gloomy as the prison and its dark stones.  
  
"Your place is not here. I always told you Little Angel.  
  
\- I'm not your little angel."  
  
He was pale and his cough had worsened. His whole body was shaking, and he was heavily applying his handkerchief to his lips at every fifth.  
  
\- I will not come anymore. I too have enough. I'm sick of you!  
  
But he was shaking, clenching and loosening his fists. Never had the man's eyes been so sad to him.What a masquerade!  
  
"Will you continue to write to me? asked the man. His soft voice was almost tinged with hope.  
  
\- No.  
  
Scorpius left. Hurt, broken. And he had stood firm, he had kept silence and did not write anymore.  
  
He always received the letters, but he did not read them. Every envelope he threw in the fire threatened to tear his heart out, but he held on tight, clinging to his pride.  
  
He spent the end of the summer with the Potters, in the stifling heat of that unusually hot month, clinging to Albus, comforted by his presence and his feverish embrace, when an alert was issued throughout the country.  
  
Azkaban's escape from a dangerous criminal, one of Voldemort's henchmen, a terrible killer.  
  
**Antonin Dolohov**. Killer, murderer, executioner.  
  
"He's dying," Harry Potter said at dinner to reassure his wife. "A violent pneumonia. It is even a miracle that he has lived so long. The other guards were questioned. He received many letters but we found no trace. The letters suddenly stopped and he became lethargic. The guard thought he was dead, but he attacked him and fled. "  
  
Pale and trembling, Scorpius asked to leave the table to go to bed. Everybody thoought of an insolation, and he took refuge in Albus's room. He lay on the bed, his mind blank. From the hair to the tip of his feet, he felt irradiated with a powerful pain that started from his heart. Breathing seemed difficult.  
  
For hours he could not sleep. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, rocked by the breath of Albus who had joined him and slept at his side.  
  
At dawn he thought he heard the sound of a violin and the familiar, weak and vague notes that brought him out of his torpor. He did not know if he dreamt the music or if he really heard it.  
  
He got up and left the room quietly. When he arrived at the door, it seemed to him that the notes were becoming clearer. He went out without shoes or cloaks.  
  
The air was cold, the sun was barely visible. He passed the garden and the gate and plunged into the plain around towards the big willow from where the melody seemed to come.  
  
As he approached the tree, the music became more pronounced and despite the swelling of his heart, he could not convince his legs to move faster.  
  
When he reached the height of the tree, he saw the man under the willow. He stopped playing and opened his eyes to take a look at the boy who could not help but smile at him with sadness. He approached again, while the Man put his instrument on the ground and rose to meet him. Face to face, they dared not advance, the habit of the bars and the distance between their two bodies."How did you know I would be here? Scorpius whispered, his voice shattered by emotion.  
  
The man smiles.- Is it important?"  
  
Scorpius shook his head.  
  
The man coughed, but had no handkerchief to cover his lips and he slapped his sleeve to smother the cough. Scorpius winced at the blood staining the shirt.  
  
"Why did you not tell me?  
  
His voice was only a complaint. Her lip trembled and her eyes shone with tears that did not flow.  
  
"I wanted to see you," said the man, approaching him.  
  
He reached for the boy but did not dare to touch him. He grazed his hair and clothes, as if he were unreal.  
  
"But I did not want you to see me like that. I ... I did not want to die in front of you.”  
In a hurry, he took him in his arms and hugged him, plunging his face into his fair hair, breathing in his scent. His hands grabbed Scorpius's hips and pulled him towards him gently. He circled his waist with his arms, resting his forehead against his. His long black hair stroked his cheeks. His body was shaking, his hands were feverish. He had wanted this embrace for so long.  
  
"But I'm selfish," he whispered. I don’t want your happiness, I don’t want to relieve you. I just wanted to see you one last time, just one last time."  
  
Under the willow, his back leaning against the tree, his arms around the boy's hips, the Man made love to him.  
  
He kissed him on the forehead and placed the astrolabe around his neck "so that he could spot the stars" and the boy slid the pendant against his heart.  
  
The man died in his arms, leaning on the trunk, Scorpius's face against his chest. He listened to the last music he offered, the last notes of his heart, and his name in his last breath.  
  
He did not move, pressed against him, when reality struck him.  
  
A scream formed in his throat and he stifled it against the man's chest, pulling on his clothes with his fists as tears ran down his face. Still shaking with tears, he tore himself from his arms.  
  
He had to warn someone, Albus, Harry Potter, the Aurors!  
  
He wanted him to be buried, with a name on his grave, a name for the Man, and not an anonymous corpse under a willow. He had a name.  
  
He went back to the Potters and alerted the family. They took his tears for fear, her lost look for fear. Only Albus understood as soon as he saw him.He led them to the Man and waited for him to be taken away.  
  
He was not allowed to keep the violin, which was taken with the body.  
  
Scorpius thought he would never stop crying. The icy metal of the astrolabe slid down his chest, as he cried again and again, and listened to useless words of comfort, surrounded by people he loved but could not understand.  
  
He spent the rest of the summer in the shade of the willow tree. Albus came to pull him out of his trance several times a day, almost furious."You have to stop hurting yourself like this!”  
  
And Scorpius ignore him, his eyes were vague.  
  
He stopped crying. It was the last day of the holidays and his father would pick him up that evening.  
  
He looked up and saw Albus looking at him, he could not tell how long he had been there. He approached and sat down beside him, brushing his legs with his.  
  
They stood for a moment, watching the plain in silence, when Scorpius felt Albus's lips caress his shoulder, then his neck.  
  
"I did not choose Slytherin, he murmured against his skin. I chose you. _I chose you._ "  
  
His voice touched him, pierced the heart that would never be in ice again.  
  
He stroked Albus's cheek and looked at him as if he saw him for the first time. He smiled at him.  
  
"I’m okay now" Scorpius murmured and kissed him, for the first time he kissed him. When he opened his eyes, he _saw_ him and he regretted not looking at him earlier.  
  
Albus had that smile that could light the world, and took his hand before taking him home with him.  
  
For a moment Scorpius thought he heard the music, but it was the wind in the willow.  
  
End.      
  
  
  
  
  

 

**Author's Note:**

> (insta Kill0Blake)


End file.
